Suspicious Lawyer Says He Declined Stanford Job
A skeptical lawyer with Shutts & Bowen in Miami says he turned down legal business from a Texas billionaire recently accused in an $8 billion fraud.
Bowman Brown now represents clients who bought certificates of deposit from R. Allen Stanford, who has been accused in a civil complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission of operating a “massive, ongoing fraud” by selling the high-return CDs based on unsubstantiated claims.
But in the 1980s, it was Stanford who sought out Brown’s help, the Palm Beach Post reports. “He wanted to set up an offshore operation with an office in Miami that would not be regulated by U.S. regulators,” Brown told the newspaper.
Brown was suspicious and declined the business, according to the Palm Beach Post story. Stanford got legal advice elsewhere and set up a Miami office of Stanford International Bank of Antigua.
“It was an open secret in the banking community that the business model wasn’t right,” Brown told the newspaper. “If you’re paying above market rates and have a small accounting firm in a jurisdiction where they don’t heavily regulate banks, and the process involves putting money into a black box and it comes out enhanced, … something is wrong.”
